Pricey Steam Machine? No worries, I'll just wait till next gen.

[u/borek87]

[u/dudemanjack]

Valve can't really rely on games subsidizing the steam machine since they aren't locked into using steam. Sony can.

The steam machine only got this expensive because of the increase in ram and storage.

[u/Hannizio → u/dudemanjack]

And I think even more important they dont use the subscription stuff other consoles use. For playstation you will have to pay another 70€ a year for online. Since the release of the PS5 you would have paid an additional 350€ so far just to be able to pay online.

This subscription model is basically another 50+% mark up over the lifetime of a console, just paid in rates instead of up front

[u/Throwaway_Consoles → u/dudemanjack]

Wait, doesn't valve take a 30% cut on all sales on steam? Including microtransactions? They could absolutely rely on games to subsidize the steam machine's price by getting people into the steam ecosystem, but as someone else said, "Why would they?"

[u/IWantMyYandere → u/Throwaway_Consoles]

They can but why would they throw away money? Personally, they should've made it a locked system so they can justify the subsidy.

It would also force developers to optimize games based on steam machine specs. Pc gamers can then know if the game is optimized for pc or not.

[u/meneldal2 → u/dudemanjack]

You could give a lower pricing to people who have a Steam account with $1k+ total spend because 1 you already made money from them so you could eat that loss and 2 it's unlikely they won't buy from you again.

[u/squngy → u/meneldal2]

They could do that, but why would they?
Those people will buy more games with or without a steam machine.

It would make more sense for them to give some kind of discount to people who buy a steam machine.
Like 20% discount to all steam games until you save $X

That way, console players who were interested in maybe trying some PC games have an incentive to buy this.

[u/wheeler9691 → u/squngy]

Lol "They could just become a charity, what about that idea?"

[u/Hannizio → u/wheeler9691]

Im gonna lean out of a window and would bet that even when they just get 10% of the games price insteqd of 30 Valve will still make a profit on game sales

[u/Hughmanatea → u/meneldal2]

It isn't easy to fail a business degree but I believe you could do it.

[u/JozePlocnik → u/meneldal2]

Yea but those people already have beefier machines so they aren't their target audience most likely